What is more, the Zimbabwe Media Commission, itself a constitutional body, is set for launching.Īll the parties agreed to its formation, and even set clear parameters for its operations. It suggests a certain infantile outlook which strikes one as backward.Īnd of course as politicians in the inclusive government jockey and bicker, they will seek the support of different sections of the media, in the process entrenching the polarisation which already exists. Surely a whole big country whose roots in international relations span over centuries cannot obsess over Mugabe, Tsvangirai, Gono, etc, etc? ![]() It is a pity that a country that seeks to "mother" another, shows such spiteful fixation with mere individuals, while the "child" shows such remarkable precocity. The European Union is still keeping a façade of unanimity to placate Britain, much as I know that a good number of member countries are already putting feelers on how best to break out of the straitjacket of British government hatred of Mugabe, which daily pretends to pass for "a policy". The Americans are being made to have said so, much as I know better. The British have done so, in the process exhibiting their disavowal of this settlement. Noticing this propensity, outsiders have not wasted time in setting parameters and benchmarks for the new government. What is worse, one sees an uncanny attempt to answer to outside interests before the views of Zimbabweans - themselves the owners of this thing - are consulted. There is perfect confusion regarding party agendas and governmental policies and programmes. We are already beginning to get a foretaste of this: by way of larger pronouncements and visions purveyed before the new creature launches its inaugural meeting by way of cabinet. More practically, politicians themselves will be the first ones to scald the inclusive government. Whatever adjective comes before it, the new creature to emerge out of the September 15 Agreement is still a government whose work or lack of it impacts variously on citizens.Īs it makes decisions, implements them, it will draw reactions - some happy, some quite unhappy - from various interest groups who will seek ventilation through the media.īringing views of citizens into the public domain is the reason for existence of the media which profits power by communicating feedback to it. While the media, alongside other countervailing institutions normal in a democracy, have to defer to the new kid on the block, they do not have to doff to it. That does not quite give it a blank cheque over larger societal institutions. JOMIC was set up specifically to review or audit the political agreement of the three parties. This raises the spectre of consensual mis-governance to which we have to find institutional cures by way of countervailing alternative power points. It will be governed by consensual politics worked out by the hitherto warring parties. Politically, after the inauguration of the inclusive government Zimbabwe will not have an official opposition. Much worse, the format of getting representatives of political parties to speak rotationally, in equal measure, suggested exactly the opposite of what the speakers were asserting and sought to project.īut there are more substantive reasons for keeping media regulation off JOMIC’s limits. ![]() The whole event would have been more useful if JOMIC had sought to achieve greater media understanding through a very detailed, off-the-record brief on the whole political process and its prospects. ![]() Secondly, the remarks from the speakers were pretty hackneyed and even intimidatory, in fact reminiscent of Zimbabwe in the early eighties. For a start, there was no one from the Information Ministry, as if to suggest a new, supra-governmental regulatory layer was being inaugurated. Or to turn JOMIC into some kind of "policeman" over the media.Īnd JOMIC’s meeting with journalists did not do much to dispel this apprehension. WHILE I agree with JOMIC’s call for some forbearance in respect of the newly inaugurated inclusive government, I hotly oppose any attempt to privilege this new arrangement.
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